Nirajan Dhakal from Nepal has a university degree in Civil Engineering (2002) and two master degrees in water Supply Engineering (2011) from UNESCO IHE, The Netherlands and in Regional Development Planning and Management from TU Dortmund, Germany and University of the Philippines, Manila (2009).
After graduation in 2002 Nirajan worked for local government as Civil Engineer for the project funded by the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and British Governments Department for International Development (DFID) for 3 years. During this period Nirajan was active on providing the technical support on survey, design, implementation of the rural micro infrastructure such as water and sanitation, irrigation canal, micro-hydro, rural road, rural electrification. In addition, he also supported on the district level and community level participatory project planning process by guiding them through identifying and analyzing the issues, problems, needs and constraints. After this he joined humanitarian organization "Action Contre La Faim as Water and sanitation supervisor from August 2006 to May 2007. During this period he carried out pre-feasibility study and performed analysis to identify constraints and opportunities for the implementation of WASH project in Bajhang district (Far western region, Nepal).
Nirajan Dhakal graduated with a PhD from IHE Delft in November 2017 on the topic 'Algal Blooms and Seawater Desalination Systems: advanced pre-treatment to combat biofouling'.